Impacts of Forest Management-Induced Productivity Changes on Future Land
Use and Land Cover Change
Abstract
Anthropogenic land use and land cover change (LULCC), is projected to
continue in the future. However, the influence of forest management on
forest productivity change and subsequent LULCC projections remain
under-investigated. This study explored the impacts of forest
management-induced change in forest productivity on LULCC throughout the
21st century. Specifically, we developed a framework to softly couple
the Global Change Analysis Model and Global Timber Model to consider
forest management-induced forest productivity change, and projected
future LULCC across the five Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs). We
found future increases in forest management intensity overall drive the
increase of forest productivity. The forest management-induced forest
productivity change shows diverse responses across all SSPs, with a
global increase from 2015 to 2100 ranging from 3.9% (SSP3) to 8.8%
(SSP1). This further leads to an overall decrease in the total area with
change of land use types, with the largest decrease under SSP1 (-7.5%)
and smallest decrease under SSP3 (-0.7%) in 2100. Among land use types,
considering forest management-induced change significantly reduces the
expansion of managed forest, and also reduces the loss in natural land
in 2100 across SSPs. This suggests that ignoring forest
management-induced forest productivity change underestimates the
efficiency of wood production, overestimates the managed forest
expansion required to meet the future demand, and consequently,
potentially introduces uncertainties into relevant analyses, e.g.,
carbon cycle and biodiversity. Thus, we advocate to better account for
the impacts of forest management in future LULCC projections.